A first-time mom adjusting to her new everything

Tag Archives: where did that come from?

That’s how many minutes are in 363 days. It’s how many minutes it took for my mother to die, me to have a baby, and my father to die. In a way, I really appreciate that my parents were apart less than a year. But in others, the entire situation feels incredibly unfair.

The reason I haven’t posted in a while is because I had the baby Dec. 4, after jackrabbiting through labor in just under 8 hours, including a 2.5 hour nap and 2.5 hours of pushing, and a near miss on getting an epidural. Overall, I guess I was pretty lucky to have such a short labor.

They kept me 3 days in the hospital, where I learned that feeding the Bobblehead needs to happen without a blanket or he’ll just sleep, and showed my dad his grandson via video conference since he wasn’t coming down until January 10th. I was discharged the 6th, went to our first pediatrician appointment the morning of the 7th, and at 3:30 in the afternoon I got the phone call telling me the police found my daddy dead in his home, of sudden but natural causes. He was 61, and died 3 days before the first anniversary of my mama’s death.

So, at 4 days postpartum and being home just over 24 hours, we loaded the car with clothes, gear, baby, and dog, and drove 9 hours from the Carolinas to Ohio. As executor, I had to be the one to do everything. In the past week, I’ve cleared out his apartment, started insurance claims, begun probate, and had his funeral. We’re going to try to go home Tuesday or Wednesday next week. Today my son is 11 days old, and lived at home about 28 hours.

I don’t know what life will hold after we get back; there has been no chance to just bond as a family or establish a regular schedule. I hope it’s easier once all the estate business ends and I have nothing I must do except care for Bobblehead. Maybe it won’t be. All I know is it’s amazing what you can do physically, mentally, and emotionally when you have no choice.

On Monday I had contractions. Real ones, not Braxton-Hicks, but irregular. I went to the doctor, got it confirmed and had a surprise cervix check.

Was not expecting it, and WHOA. Now I know how a carton of ice cream feels when I dig a scoop into it.

The doctor even commented how low Baby’s head was: “The head is, like, RIGHT THERE. I have to reach around it to get to your cervix…” He forgot to mention to brace myself, Bridget. My vagina has never been more thoroughly felt.

I had to rest Tuesday, and came back to work today, but we’ll see if they want me to stay – I’m still having a contraction every few hours of the painful persuasion, so I have no idea. I do know it makes my big boss nervous. I think he’d like it if I didn’t come back, but that’s not happening unless I have a note for bed rest so I get short-term disability. The reality is that I can’t afford to go an additional 2 weeks with no pay, and I’ve allocated all my paid leave for when I planned to start FMLA leave. We’ll see how that goes.

At least I’ll have an answer Friday, when I have another doctor’s appointment! Something tells me my vagina will be invaded again, but the doctor will be a lady…maybe her fingers are smaller.